Officials of IAA Romania, the main association of the marketing and communication industry in Romania, will assume the mission to put up a country brand for Romania, IAA president Felix Tataru announced on Thursday, in a press conference. The self-called "coalition for a country brand" aims at creating a document for the political class, in order to draw attention and interest towards the subject.
Felix Tataru reminded that the first initiative in this area came in 2003, but nothing was solved at the time. Tataru says that most top politicians usually say - when confronted with such an initiative - that it is all very interesting, it must be done, then everything stops.
This time, the invitation is addressed to the entire marketing and communication industry, the project that might be born from this coalition being a pro bono project.
On his turn, branding specialist Mihai Ghyka says that the project suffers from the lack of political interest and that the branding must take place inside the country, at first, only then abroad.
Former United Nations deputy secretary general, Shashi Tharoor, emphasized that the country brand for Romania must also include other aspects, besides the universal natural beauty, people and booze. In his experience, the country brand must also see that other points are covered:
- know what you want your country to represent worldwide;
- ideas must be related to the existing reality;
- know that the foreign environment may affect the environment you try to build;
- admit that there are interior factors that may affect the development of a consistent brand;
- know that "unauthorized" elements will contribute to the branding;
- the heavy promotion of a country brand is expensive. Officials of IAA Romania, the main association of the marketing and communication i
